


Quod Mors Colorem

by nyanyanya22



Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Cluster - Freeform, End of the World, Human Exceptionalism, Other
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-16
Updated: 2020-08-16
Packaged: 2021-03-06 04:46:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,458
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25927612
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nyanyanya22/pseuds/nyanyanya22
Summary: "I love you Peridot"".....Wow, Thanks"---------------------It starts with a legend.This is how it happened. This is how the planet died.---------------------AU AFTER GEM DRILL. THREESHOT.
Kudos: 2





	Quod Mors Colorem

**_ DIARY ENTRY 5: _ **

We hear word that the mysterious force has slaughtered yet another village. Mother Gaia and Father Terra grow weary with the Stone Folk's poison. The last of us are becoming weak both in body and mind.

Ji Hyun's papers have given us a dreadful insight into what has come to our planet, what thew rumored force roaming the planet is.

We fear what comes next.

I write this in the hopes someone, somewhere, will someday be able to read this, and perhaps figure out what happened here on our planet.

How it died, and who killed it.

Provide context, as best we can. Legends becoming fact and fact becoming legend.

I've left an encyclopedia of our general knowledge and terminology and a book of a general history of us, both alongside this journal. It should provide the context needed to understand what happened here. Whether future generations who pull through this...or something else.

I don't think I have enough time to tell you myself.

* * *

Let me start you off with a legend.

There is an ancient proverb of the Josean's that reads **희가 온화한 숲의 햇볕에 만족할 때에, 바위와 절망이 비로 변해 내릴지어니**

_**"If thou settles for gentle forest suns, they shall be given a rain of rocks and despair."** _

It's seemingly obvious meaning of 'Prepare for the worst, expect the best." wasn't lost on even the daftest lad, but few grew to appreciate the history behind it.

For you see, the Josean's had a legend, a series of primarily oral stories, with the occasional mural, old book, or carving, a story supposedly dating back to the neigh-mythical Gojoseon era. It went a little something like this.

* * *

**그랜드 핑크 월드 마더**

**Long ago, during the era of the Gojoseon, a great force of coloured death came from the darkness. A tribe of many warrior women, bodies of sand and minds of stone, descended upon our land.**

**Like beasts, they scoured the land. Not our mightiest warrior nor strongest pantheon could halt their progress, a unworldly force of pure hatred killing all they sought.** **They slaughtered our people and soured the soil, The Colored Death spread itself across Samhan and Xia, destroying all who resisted their blight.  
**

**Then, down from the spirit realm came The Grand Pink World Mother, a voluptuous figure of both compassion and might. For generations, she halted the spread of the blight, with the help of many a great warrior, her very kisses restoring the life force of all who fought for her.**

**Many generations were lost fighting the creeping threat alongside her, but eventually,** **The Grand Pink World Mother vanquished the vile blight, which turned back to the deathly skies of which they came. But with a horrific blast of light, they cast a horrific curse, plaguing our lands with monsters and demons with the vestige of their masters.**

**And yet, she fought onward, and with every village left empty by a monster, she'd remove one. For centuries this cycle continued until our homeland was purged of the curse, and, just as suddenly as she appeared, The Grand Mother left, perhaps to vanquish monsters elsewhere. The Shang traders know of the Great Mother, and it's seems her light shall extend outward forever more.**

**We are not to grow complacent, for** **The Colored Death could always return, and enact yet another monstrous loss upon us.**

* * *

Of course, it was just a story, and a translation at that. The exact details vary account to account, some say The Earth Mother acted alone, others say a whole pantheon of valiant and righteous deities walked alongside her. A Chinese variation of the legend found from the Song Dynasty describes "A great evil" coming to the land during the (possible mythical) Xia Dynasty, leading most historians to conclude they were likely from the same base mythos.

Perhaps some sort of ancient war between the Xia and Gojoseon lost to time, stories of brightly colored warrior uniforms and inspiring medicine women on the home front, heavily distorted through time?

Perhaps.

Of course, if one were to look closer and connect a few dots, an individual of a certain... _speculative_ sort of mindset could come to a very different conclusion.

Aside from neigh identical versions of the story from China and Japan, similar tales with various connected details seemed to exist everywhere.

The Basque peoples of Iberia told tales of "The Magenta Goddess" who could heal the wounds of warriors slayed by demonic creatures from the south, and even apparently fought them herself, freeing the land from their toll. Like a holy grail, she apparently possessed a magic spring from which her power flowed. (Francisco Franco reportedly sent a team to look for The Mythical Spring in the 1950s)

The Navajo told stories of "The Great Blight", when the soil in the area near the Grand Canyon went completely dead, sapping the tribe of it's people as run in's with "Great Orange Warriors" defeated even the best they could offer, until the tribe migrated North West in response, hence their current location.

Perhaps more details existed before the oral record was shattered by the Europeans.

And of course, there is the infamous Shawnee "Mountain of the Damned", a hill with over a thousand vaguely human shaped holes carved in, some over 5 feet deep. Historically, a source of mystery and intrigue, theories of cults and worship not unlike Stonehenge. Today, a tourist trap run by crooked men looking to scam naive folk who will pay to see anything native, along with the pilgrimage of manga nerds seeking to see the inspiration for "Amigara Fault".

Just curious stories though. Disconnected, unrelated oddities of our past.

Coincidence.

And it seems the message of military expansion and outward progress that the original legend implied eventually left the East. The Chinese, Joseans, and Japanese turned inward and ignored the world, to their own detriment when the empires of Europe came over the horizon.

Lessons had been forgotten, crucial morals lost to time. That much was obvious.

We just didn't know to what extent it was true.

* * *

No one would have thought such a future was coming.

Ahead of us, a glorious era of prosperity and relaxation.. The era of autocrats and militarism had come to an end, and it seemed for many the biggest problem was simply what would be on the television or what sort of luxury goods could be acquired. Everyone even(supposedly) ditched their nukes, though everyone held severe doubts about certain powers.

Now, don't get me wrong, there's nothing wrong with some good old fashioned capitalism. A civilization that loses hopes for the future and pleasures for the present is doomed to slowly suffocate and eventually subside, choking on it's own misery, but...perhaps we let our guard down.

Empires on the horizon looking for complacent powers, thus it has always been, thus it will always be.

Before I go any further and discuss what happened, I suppose I should introduce myself.

My name is Jack Hughes Price, American businessman in the land of the free. I run a...I ran a chain of l convenience stores in Pittsburgh Keystone, along with a small tricket factory. You know, trickets, stuff to sell in coin machines and kindereggs. Trinkets. Bobbleheads, dream catchers, knicknacks, - trinkets.

Not the most glamorous of products I know, but not everyone can sell electric cars and fancy cups, someone has to provide the gift shops with their crap and feed the poor college students full of ramen and liquor. Where there's money to be made, someone will come.

One can, perhaps, extrapolate that philosophy to a more extreme degree.

If there's a crumbling empire to exploit, nations will come to exploit it.

If there's resources to get, empires will arise to find them, whether internal or external.

Weak military, plus extreme wealth and resource capital. It's free real estate for burgeoning empires.

It is the folly of prosperous people to let their guard down.

But of course, the age of empires is over, atleast overtly. Sure, there's the occasional proxy schism, but why bother? It's a mono-power system, interconnected. No risk of great powers barging in to take our shit.

And there weren't. (At the moment anyway)

Not on this green Earth.

But we didn't think big enough, no one who mattered did.

Gaia is, but one mistress, and it would be foolish to assume The Great Game of Realpolitik was limited to our big blue marble.

But, I suppose we are a planet of hairless monkeys.

We are prone to foolishness.

* * *

I woke up. I hadn't slept well, but it didn't matter.

For the vast majority of people, it was a normal day, like any other on this fine green Earth.

Me personally, I had scored a deal to sell my trinkets in a chain of South Korean dollar stores. Not anything fancy, but you know, it's progress. Moving onwards and upwards I suppose.

I recall in great detail the flight, perhaps the last normalcy I was able to taste. Sky Waitress was a cute brunette, short blue skirt. The movie options were La Llaman Rubi and Silens Incedo, I caught a little of the latter, mostly because the former was in Spanish.

It spoke of the very fates of our lives being dictated by forces far beyond our control. Prophetic, almost, though I recall at the time dismissing the borderline religious connotations.

I had a brief chat with a bloke on the right next to me by the name of Mike, but truth be told I was mostly practicing my pitch in my head until the call to land came. I just wanted to be absolutely sure those men knew my trinkets were sellable.

God, thinking about it in hindsight feels so...pointless, in a way.

But I suppose that's how it tends to be for people. We always remember that normalcy, and we crave it, we seek it, we hold onto it knowing we very well never get it back, like a corrupted generation. We shuffleforward, hoping it gets better.

Heh, shuffle. I suppose I have that film on my brain again. Only healthy to allow pleasant thoughts from time to time, especially with such darkness.

Perhaps I'm simply procrastinating, for, as a man living nearly a full fortnight future after the fact, I know exactly what comes next, but I feel it best to recite my conversion with Mike on the plane. Perhaps because, in some way, I cling to the hope this will relight some normality within me.

"First time?" He asked me out of the blue, causing me to cock my head in confusion, turning to face him. He was an older, middle aged man, looked about 48-53.

"Pardon me?"

"Is this your first time going to Korea?" He sternly replied, clearly losing a bit of patience in my lack of attention, his teeth showing in a mild frown, yellowed from years of pipe smoke.

"Oh, uh, yes!" I quickly put on my gentleman face, changing my presentation in an instant to a businesstic facade. "I'm actually looking to secure a deal for my toy company." It was a slight bluff, toy company was a bit of an exaggeration, but it was part of the business game. "All very professional stuff, just gotta finalize with the-"

"Pesticides."

"What?" I asked. Though I had in fact heard him quite clearly the first time, I simply wanted to inquire for more detail without seeming rude.

"I work for a pesticide company. We're selling them to a rice plantation on the east."

"Oh." I commented, noting the cold tone in his voice. "That uh, must be profitable."

"Mmm." He grunted slightly, pulling his magazine back up to his face. I could tell he didin't have any interest in speaking even a moment longer, so I got up and went to the washroom to clear the tension. Felt good. Older businessmen always had such an aura of control to them. They've won The Great Game and they know it, life is free and upon. A sort of cocky sense of self control few have. I was nowhere near that point yet, I thought to myself as I took a shit.

Probably the last peaceful moment I'll ever have, to be honest. It saddens me. The porcelain throne, where our most societally shameful bodily functions occur, will forever be entombed in my mind as the last moment things made sense.

Poetic in a way. The most natural and unsocietal act is the last one before society itself met it's swan song.

I'm not sure whether to smile or cry.

...

An Earthquake.

That was the first sign of trouble.

As we came in to land at Goryeo Airport, I recall very well, as I wiped the sweat off my brow and thought forward to an air conditioned conference room, was a notice to American passengers. _A magnitude 7 quake had struck the Virginia-Delmarva fault._

With incredible clarity, I can recount every reaction.

The sky waitresses stayed stone cold calm, yet, perhaps a hidden twinge of guilt at the loss of life. A rather fat man to my left side kept asking nonsensical questions about a tsunami. (The quake was in an inland bay, not deep enough for anything of a significant degree)

Perhaps he was on the right track, but regardless, I dismissed him internally.

And still, the thing I remember most was how I felt.

Relief. Perhaps pride even. (And not just compared to the idiot next to me)

Sure, there's been a massive earthquake, the biggest ever in the area, but, it happened on the southern end of the fault, far away from my home. Any broken windows would be fixed when I returned. And, so far as the news on the plane said, fatality's were very low. Mostly wooden shacks on the coast hit, pointless sea side tourist beach cities that were probably just money laundering fronts anyway.

Everything was under control.

That uh, was my prevailing mindset under my head until we landed, I still had the conference in mind.

The airport was fine, a bit packed, but the South Korean customs are not prone to troublesome searches. Just a quick check of security theater, a remnant of horrific past events.

But, as I exited, the clump of people ahead grew steadily thicker. I only then noticed an increasingly large crowd of people, mostly those of Korean blood, gathering round the TV screen. An awe-some image of a city, torn apart from the roads up played, alongside the tongue of their people. I noted it as quite peculiar, for it had been quite some time since the quake.

There shouldn't have been any major cities that close, I remember thinking to myself. As I turned my attention back to a small list of notes I had prior drafted on the flight, I found myself continuing to read the same paragraph over and over, as if my very being had been paralyzed by that thought.

Of course this only lasted a few minutes, as the feverish panic in the airport seemed to swell like the great waves I had earlier pondered, pushing me towards the exit, I happened to catch a TV playing in English.

I shall write to you, my enigmatic reader, exactly what it was I heard in that moment.

**"We come to now, as atleast seven quakes have struck the American coast. While originating in and around the Virgina-Delmarva fault, a huge outbreak of earthquakes has spread as far south as Florida Island and as far up as the Great Northern Lakes. Waves as high as 60 feet as anticipated to strike the costs of Iberiastan and Saharia as a result. Geologist Rando McGregor is here to try to explain the-"**

I froze. My memory of what exactly happened after that is a bit hazy. It was fear and horror, of the most unearthly and eldritch sort.

My friends. My family. My thoughts immediately extended out to them. What were to happen to my mother? All of my employees? Where would they work?

What had happened to my mother?

I do recall a frenzied set of panicked thoughts entering my mind right then and there. "To hell with the meeting." I thought, I have to find a phone. Of course, in my haze after seeing such a shocking sight I had neglected to grab my bags, and with a tidal wave of people spewing forth from the doors I wasn't getting back in anytime soon, so I pressed onward.

I rented a cab, just as planned, but I no longer had the slightest intention of getting to the meeting. It seemed as though the world itself was slated against that. "Why", I verbally asked myself several times.

"Why?"

"Why?"

"Why?"

Why now? Why have a seemingly unscientific string, an IMPOSSIBLE series of earthquakes? I had no such beliefs in divine constitutions, I was wholly dedicated to scientific and earthly beliefs, but...such things draw up memories of Noah's Ark and Biblical Plagues.

I had no clue what was going on.

And I was about to find out.

But firstly, one last stage to set, my dearest reader, whoever you are. One last semblance of normal interaction in my life before things went down.  
Plus, he'd kill me if I left him out.

He's sitting next to me in the present.

"Why?"

"You ok mate?" A voice piped up, startling me out of my stupor. After the millisecond long burst of panic and anxiety from the noise, my attention snapped to the driver of the taxi. He was...well, I'd call him a Dixie at first glance, but a second thought left doubts? Australian? Shoving that thought aside for a moment, I considered his question.

The answer was clear. "No. No not really. My entire family may be dead, and I feel as though my entire worldview is coming apart."

...Ok, so maybe I stuttered a little more at the time, but I was shaken! If I wrote down every stutter or anxietal shake, we'd be here all day. Not to mention it would make me look bad, but I digress.

The taxi noticeably slowed down. "Shit." He paused, turning back to look at me. "Did your plane cras-FUCK, forget I said that...shit..." The man looked sheepishly at the ground, though I was unclear whether it was out of true embarrassment or simple fear of consequences from his superiors was unclear to me. "Sorry mate, I uh..."

"The radio." I said...I think. Truth be told I was so consumed in my own ever disturbed thoughts at the time my exact recollection is vague. Once again, I shall recreate it to the best of my memory.

"I uh, I'm not really supposed to-"

"TURN IT ON!"

The man eventually gave in, the radio springing back to life.

It wasn't good news.

**-fissures ladies and gentle, I can't believe what I'm seeing, the entire bay of Rohoboth is draining into what appears to be a series of massive-"**

The radio bzzzted out, the man pulling back his shaking hand. "F...fu...fucking hell..." He turned to look at me. I remember the look on his face.

It was blank. Sagging. Like he had just learned the world as he knew it was over.

But it wasn't that bad. Not yet.

I waited for him to speak again.

Instead, the poor bloke vomited. I was in too much shock at the revelation to react properly, but it atleast snapped me out of my stupor.

I don't recall what I thought then. It was too much of a blur.

My brain, struggling to handle the torrent of anguish moving forthward on it like a pack of jackals, simply retraced itself to it's prior objective.

"I need to find a phone. I need to call my wife."

The man turned back to me. "Right..." I recall the squelching sound as he wiped the bile off his lip, my enormous gas reflex leaving me staggered for breath, resisting the urge to throw up. "It's like the end times out there...what's causing it?"

"Earthquakes...all the way down the continent." I shook my head in pain. "I don't know why. No one does, I don't think."

"It's like Revelations." The man turned to me. "You know, the Rapture?"

I shook my head no. Truthfully, I was somewhat acquainted by the stories of the Bible, Quran, and Tanakh, but I found little personal comfort in them. Yahweh and his son were not of interest to me, for I found my internal comforts in the knowledge that I was doing better then most people and would presumably have something to pass down when I finally was ready to have children to call my own. (Assuming they were my own. I had considered the Japanese strategy of adopting a worthy heir, but that seemed, extreme. The trinket business wasn't exactly competitive)

I had a habit of dismissing them by default, religious arguments were unwise for business. Perhaps that instinctual response was why I nodded no.

Or perhaps, just perhaps, I had grown afraid he was right.

Or it was something worse.

"Earthquakes come first" he told me, his hands glued to the wheel as we pulled into some Korean convenience store of which I could not possibly identify. "And, well..." He gestured vaguely, rubbing his throat with one hand to keep down the pile. "These fit the profile."

I asked him if he was religious next. He simply laughed. "Not anymore mate, not anymore."

I dared not ask why. My thoughts were growing darker as it was already.

"Name's Vincent, by the way."

I didn't care.

I simply wanted to call my family.

* * *

CLINK.

CLINK.

CLINK.

CHA BOP.

BRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR.

The payphone buzzed, ringing gently as I held my breath in fear and anticipation. She was fine. They probably weren't that bad up there.

BRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR.

She had to pack up when the quakes started, they've gone to stay with my cousin in Kansas. I know his number, I can just...

BRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR.

Maybe she's been injured, but she's in care, and she'll return the call.

BRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR.

Wait, how would she return a call from here? How would I know the hospitals number?

BRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR.

SHE'S FINE, SHE HAS TO BE FINE.

WE'RE SORRY. THE NUMBER YOU HAVE CALLED IS NO LONGER IN-

"GODDAMN IT!"

...

I didn't take the news well.

I screamed. The woman at the counter didn't even bother trying to quiet me, her tear stained eyes saying more then my speculative mind ever could.

That thought didn't last long though, as Vince piped back up, gesturing to to the large TV screen.

"Uh...mate..."'

* * *

The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear, is the horror of the unknown, a threat beyond comprehension.

But just as the flesh can only tolerate so much damage, it seems the mind can only absorb so much horror, before it closes up...to protect itself.

Perhaps that's logic.

Perhaps when the threat exceeds imagination, we conclude that the threat simply...cannot be true.

...

I would be unable to recall what happened next, were it not for the fact nearly every man and woman on this o'Earth recorded what happened next in some way shape or form, whether a TV DVR or a VHS recording or a news station beta tape.

I've seen it a million times. It's only been a With multiple news casters, some on sight.

My memory of what I thought is gone, blocked out.

I'm simply going to tell you what I see on that recording.

The fissues widened. 30 kilometers, 50 kilometers, 100, 200, nearly 500 kilometers. Keystone City, Richmound, Atlantic City, Lawndale, Balitvere, even the capital Columbia City, collapsed into the fissures.

The fissures merged, then bulged, the earth itself swelling upwards as smaller fissues and cracks spread out in all direction for untold kilometers. Slowly it bulged at first, but like a botfly maggot emerging from the flesh, it swelled upwards...a great light emerging from it...like an evil egg hatching.

From which, it, emerged.

And I can tell you this, my reader. I held no religious conventions, no fears of eldritch horror, but that...thing.

It scared me.

It is fear.

It let out a horrific screech, twitching and flickering in...what looks to me like incredible agony, as it slowly rose out from the hole, which itself spread from the foothills of Appalachia to deep out to sea, glowing bright red and orange with magma, as the ocean itself boiled with intensity from the shock, the waves of a level I had never before considered spreading out.

As it came out, the color became more noticeable. It was every color, like a lsd user making tye dye at a pride flag convention during a rainstorm, a cacophony of color speckled it's twisted, bumpy skin.

Arms. 8, 9, 10 of them. The many appendages would have drawn thoughts of The Cult of Cthulu, were it not for the massive distinctly bipedialist hands, no, fists, on each of it's arms, spreading out from it's core form nearly as wide as it seemed tall, perhaps 120 kilometers, give or take.

The legs. They were...almost human.

Almost.

Just like the rest of it, they were horrifically deformed, zigzagging and splotched with color. Twitching.

As the glow slowly subsided, a large, shiny rock, dead center on it's chest. It glowed brightest of all.

The shape of the creature was now fully apparent. 10 arms, all twitching constantly as if it was in great agony. A forehead...it was like a patchwork of eyes.

Thousands of eyes.

Twitching. All at once.

And, just as it had appeared, it let out another horrific cry, and pushed itself away from the planet, slowly drifting further out until it has passed the moon.

I'm not sure where it is now. Perhaps it has found peace.

The tsunami's wiped out the entire American continent, and everything that touched the Atlantic. I know this, not because we have any footage of that stage of the event, but because the furthest camp we've been able to contact is in Ethiopia...and the reports of the interior are grim.

Everything in the west is gone.

I...am not entirely sure as to the nature of the creature.

Even now.

My earlier diary entries display my ignorance, but...even now...even with what we've found, I don't know exactly what is is, or whom sent it.

But I know one thing, and I know one thing well, my reader.

The Coloured Death had returned to our planet, and on that day, civilization as I knew it died.


End file.
